Man receives 20-year sentence in Costa Mesa pimping case

A Bakersfield man was sentenced to 20 years in state prison Wednesday for multiple charges related to pimping, pandering and sex trafficking following a 2016 arrest at a Costa Mesa motel, the Orange County district attorney’s office said.

Deunta Patterson, 28, pleaded guilty to 21 felony charges on Monday with multiple special enhancements.

Patterson began trafficking, pimping and pandering a victim identified as “Jane Doe 1” in May 2016.

Patterson posted sexually explicit advertisements of the victim soliciting commercial sex and forced her to work as a prostitute, prosecutors said.

On July 18, 2016, the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force received a tip that Jane Doe 1 was a possible sex-trafficking victim. The next day, undercover officers arranged to meet with her at a Santa Ana motel, prosecutors said.

Officers learned that Patterson was waiting for the victim at a motel in Costa Mesa, where he was arrested later that day, prosecutors said.

While Patterson was in jail pending charges related to Jane Doe 1, investigators discovered that he was also pimping, pandering and trafficking an 18-year-old woman, whom he had started victimizing as a minor, prosecutors alleged.

Patterson pleaded guilty to multiple counts of pimping, pandering and human trafficking, plus additional counts for pimping, pandering and trafficking a minor; assault; one count each of pandering for 11 separate victims he had pandered on social media; and a special sentencing enhancement related to assaulting one victim on multiple occasions.

Twenty years is at the upper sentencing term level for human trafficking. Patterson’s crimes occurred between 2013-2016.

julia.sclafani@latimes.com